


The Love Song of Igor Karkaroff

by floweringjudas (manipulant)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, Epistolary, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manipulant/pseuds/floweringjudas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Yule Ball and beyond - sometimes second chances aren't wasted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love Song of Igor Karkaroff

  
_25 December, 1994  
approximately 9:30 p.m._   


The icicles in the Great Hall have begun to melt, waterlessly, as the Weird Sisters break into their second wave of songs. Professor Snape has watched them (the icicles, not the band) recede from the walls, has watched the cluster of Hogwarts and Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students on the other end of the hall diminish slightly, as more students slowly trickle outside.

...He has to go raid the gardens in a bit.

Frankly, he's looking _forward_ to it.

"...Severus." Professor Snape frowns a bit at the wheedling, overly-aspirated voice near his ear; he'd forgot how absolutely _irritating_ that breathiness could be, and how effective. He decides to wait a moment before acknowledging it.

"Hm?"

" _Who_ is the delicious little ginger boy usurping Crouch's place at the end of the table?"

Looking up from his third helping of pudding, Professor Snape glances down the length of Hogwarts' High Table, and winces when he spies fire-red hair. Wearing a set of dress robes that must have cost him a month's pay, Percy Weasley is talking animatedly with Professor Vector, eyeglasses flashing reflected candlelight as he moves. _No wonder a magpie like Karkaroff noticed._ Exhaling, he sets down his spoon. "Percy Weasley," he says, with a glance, and he relishes the moue of displeasure the other man gives at that.

" _Weasley_?" Igor frowns, twisting the end of his goatee with a finger, absentmindedly, as he gazes at the boy. "This country does have the most _objectionable_ surnames."

For a moment, Snape has hope for the Weasley brat's escape, and presses that advantage. "Mm. Did I fail to mention he's 15, betrothed to his sister, schiziophrenic, and incontinent?" he drawls, though his stomach starts to tighten as he looks over at Karkaroff again and finds him gazing intently down the table, eyes light and icy and focussed.

"Quite a catch, for Hogwarts, then," Karkaroff smoothly replies, smiling a little as he removes and cleans the lens of his monocle and stows it in his breast pocket. The beginnings of a long-familiar pattern thus fixed in place, Snape sighs, and tucks back into his dessert. "... _Percy_ , you said?"

"Yes." The potions master frowns down at his plate for a moment before he's forced to speak. " _Don't_ , Igor. He was Head Boy just last year and from what I hear he's barely started at the Ministry, he doesn't need _you_ cocking that up for him."

His words have the opposite effect: Karkaroff's smile and gaze both sharpen. "Ohh _hhh_ , a _Head Boy_." He pushes his chair back and stands, taking his drink, trailing a fingertip along the top of Snape's shoulder before the other man shrugs him off. "Give Dumbledore my apologies for not staying to chat."

Snape scowls at him, growls before he can move more than two steps away, "He has a bright future."

Headmaster Karkaroff pauses, shoulders hunching as he considers the statement. A moment later he turns and gives Snape his version of a winsome smile (it has more than the normal amount of teeth). "Didn't we all, once?" he murmurs. He saunters over to introduce himself.

 

***

 

The boy ( _Percy_ , Percy Percy Percy, he needs to start saying the name so he'll remember it during, ahaha, _crucial moments_ ) is an absolute joy and everything he'd once hoped Viktor Krum ( _brutish dolt - epic shoulders, though_ ) could be: well-mannered, chatty, intelligent but almost apologetically so, and absolutely deferential to anyone of authority.

The boy's - _Percy's_ \- lips are stained purple-red with the half-glass of wine still by his plate, and his cheeks are flushed, perhaps from the effect of the alcohol but Karkaroff would like so much more to believe it's because of _him_ , because of the way their knees are just touching under the table as they discuss Runes with the Hogwarts professor, because of the way Percy keeps giving him sidelong little _looks_ from under brown eyelashes.

Igor wonders how those eyelashes, those lips would taste. ...Aside from the wine, of course, he suspects sweet apples; something about the boy's (Percy's) pale skin and the cinnamon dust of freckles over it reminds him very strongly of autumn and harvest. Percy's hands are, he notices, immaculately kept: the fingernails are neat and polished, the fingers themselves almost as long as his own, high-knuckled, tendons rising and falling like piano strings as Percy gestures while he talks of an ancient set of Runic protection spells just discovered in Norway.

Percy keeps calling him _sir_.

...He wants to devour this boy whole.

Breath catching, Igor smiles and shifts subtly in his chair, prick stirring under layers of clothing. He tilts his head, crosses his legs (and of course apologises profusely - was that _Percy's leg_ his brushed against? _So_ sorry) and listens to the boy's voice, to the confident planes of it as Percy speaks with his old professor about a subject known and loved, the valleys and peaks when he glances over and finds Igor watching him interestedly. Professor Vector ( _hateful woman, GO AWAY_ ) is watching her old pet student with something akin to fondness; she's watching Igor with outright suspicion.

Igor gives her his best smile, and asks Percy what he thinks of Norway's Minister's decision to regulate the new spells, and several other of their kind. The flash in those eyes ( _oh, brown eyes, oh_ ) and the sudden twist of displeasure on those lips send Igor's heartrate skittering; for one brief livelong moment he can imagine with perfect clarity the sight of this boy, grown: the span of shoulders widened, the natural pensive expression deepened, the cut-glass hardness that will settle into his eyes when he learns, finally, that there is no constant, that there is only himself and _now_.

Percy says only a few measured words about the dangers of over-regulation and a public that can't protect itself. Igor is privately delighted and wondering if, perhaps, the boy would be suitable for a bit of moral redirection, when a sudden lancing pain to his left arm shakes him out of his reverie and almost out of his seat.

...He hasn't felt that particular pain in years.

 _Shit._

"...Headmaster Karkaroff?"

Wincing and clutching at his sleeve, Igor glances over at the boy and the professor and finds them watching him curiously; he must've sworn aloud. Apologising, words a bit choked as _another_ white-hot pain shoots up to his shoulder and down to his hand, Igor stands and manages a smile for Percy, who - _oh_ \- gives him a lovely, shy smile back. For a moment, Igor flails mentally and wishes he'd never _heard_ the name Tom Riddle, wishes he could just pluck the boy out of his chair and whisk him off to the ship, but then the burning, oh, the _fucking burning_ starts and he's back in focus.

 _Snape. Should find Snape._ He glances around wildly, sees the billow of black robes barely disappearing out of the Hall into the corridor, and stumbles after, leaving Percy ( _MY Percy, MINE_ ) and Professor Vector at varying levels of confusion in his wake.

 

***

 

Three hours later and Igor's arm is still stinging. Snape, that pedantic overgrown _bat_ of a man, has been absolutely no help whatsoever, though really Igor should've expected as much. This is what he tells himself, anyway, as he makes him way out of the ice-covered gardens and back into the humid warmth of the castle, cheeks stinging as the blood returns to his face. He sniffs delicately as he walks, roots for a handkerchief he _knows_ he has in a pocket somewhere, and -

"Headmaster Karkaroff?"

Pausing, Igor squints at the shadows behind a large suit of armour, registering a faint outline. "What?" he asks, a bit testily.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," the voice flows forward, and then a second later it's joined by a body: Percy looks sheepish as he steps out of the darkness, into the uneven candlelight flooding the corridor. "Are you all right? You left so suddenly, Professor Vector and I worried something might be wrong."

Caught off-balance, Karkaroff tilts his head, gazing at the boy interestedly as he considers that statement, the gentle untruthful inclusion of Vector, the way Percy's eyebrows are raised with nerves and apology and - _oh, thank God and Satan and all the angels in-between_ \- hope.

Quickly, Igor gives the boy his kindest smile and a small, deferential bow. "Yes, quite all right. My dear boy, I'm sorry to have worried you, everything's absolutely fine. Forgive me?" He raises his eyebrows as well, watching as a faint blush creeps up Percy's neck.

He wants to _lick_ it.

"Of course, sir," Percy says, giving him a quizzical little smile. Before Igor can properly enjoy it, however, it's gone - the boy huffs a soft little sigh, folding thin arms tight across his chest as his expression slips back into pensive.

"Something the matter, _malchik moy_?"

"Mm, no." A twitch to those lips, and Percy looks up at him, over the tops of his eyeglasses, cutting his glance away after a moment. "I may have just embarrassed my younger brother, _again_ , and I'm not exactly sure how."

Igor sucks his teeth lightly, cocking his head. "That's a shame. ...Though you know, I believe it is a _requirement_ for brothers to find members of their family intensely embarrassing. Your younger brother, yes?"

"Yes."

"How old?"

"Thir - no, fourteen."

"Ah." Karkaroff nods wisely, taking two steps closer to the boy, wading into the shadows with him, to his knees. They're not an arm's width apart now. Igor is close enough to smell a lingering trace of Percy's cologne - sweet, clean and almost floral, belying an uninformed gift from a girlfriend, a mother. It _might_ just be his first bottle of it, kept secret and hidden, only worn on _special occasions_. "I doubt it was anything you said, then - fourteen year olds are notorious for finding anyone who knows the _least_ bit about their past intensely embarrassing." He watches Percy's chest rise and fall with a long, thin breath.

"Nineteen year olds aren't much better," the boy murmurs softly a moment later, conspiratory, and Igor finds himself incredibly taken with the artless innocence in the curve of Percy's neck for a handful of seconds before he realises - miracle of miracles - that the boy has given him a _clue_.

 _Nineteen years old._

"Mm." He nods faintly, carefully neutral in his expression as he takes another step towards the boy. He can _hear_ the hitch in Percy's breath as he draws closer and, for a moment, is deliciously lightheaded with the thrill of imminent victory. "Nineteen year olds are, however, free to invent their pasts, as fourteen year olds are not."

Percy ducks his head, almost a nod, and strands of ginger hair fall into his eyes before he brushes them back in a swift, almost irritated gesture. "...And their present," he adds, gaze sliding shyly up.

Control breaking, Igor lifts a hand and uses it to press the boy back into the shadows, against the wall. Percy gasps again, less quietly, and bites the corner of his lower lip as he shifts against the cold stones digging into his back. The look he's giving Igor (over the tops of his glasses, eyelashes a small smudge against them) is equal parts anxiety and hope, and Karkaroff's fingers drum nervously on his chest, working their way up gradually to his collarbones, the base of his neck.

Slowly, Igor leans in, barely touching the line of his nose, his cold cheekbone to Percy's warm hair. There's the lingering scent of rosemary and mint there, and Igor's eyes close for a handful of seconds as he breathes the boy in. He feels Percy turn his head a little, into his own lapel, and do the same. Tentative fingers come up to curl over the ones Igor has on the boy's chest and their coolness, the faint trembling he notices in them, make him pause and give himself a private, stern (if brief) talking-to about how an ill-advised one-off is much more forgivable than an ill-advised _affair_. "...You know, you'd be the first member of the British Ministry of Magic aboard Durmstrang's ship," he murmurs conversationally, lips almost on the shell of Percy's ear. Pretending not to notice the boy's shiver, he continues, pleasant. "If you'd like, that is." He pulls away, barely enough to watch Percy's eyes slide shut.

"Yes," Percy breathes, instinctively tilting his chin up, helpful, as Igor closes in.

 

***

 

The inside of the ship is damp, and dark - Percy's grip on Karkaroff's fingers tightens as they wind through narrow walkways, his eyes unused to the absence of light. In front of him, Igor is humming quietly, walking wordlessly along; he stops suddenly (Percy nearly runs into him) and opens a door, directing Percy first into the darkened room before following after. The door closes behind them with a dull _thunk_ , and Igor murmurs a low _Lumos_ near Percy's ear, smiles crookedly as the boy squints against the light from his wandtip.

After the long minutes spent in the shadows of Hogwarts and then in the snowbanks leading to the lake, it's almost automatic, how they slide back together: fingers card through Igor's fine hair; he gathers the boy up against him, pulls away just long enough to pluck the eyeglasses from off the bridge of his nose. Percy's mouth tastes faintly of wine and coffee, he murmurs unintelligibly soft words against Igor's lips, craning and eager to learn.

Presently, the bed. Paler on the dark red of the sheets, Percy props up on his elbows and begins to undo the buttons of his shirt, but Igor stops him. Hovering, he slides onto the mattress as well, plucking the fingers away and replacing them with his own, leaning down to kiss over skin as it's exposed. Above him, the boy hisses, startled, and slides his fingers back into stark white hair.

"You taste like...hmm. Ink," Igor murmurs, eliciting another gasp and a shiver as his lips move against Percy's neck. He smirks, a little, pausing to wave a hand towards the far side of the room, humming approvingly as the wicks of several candles are magically lit, throwing their light around the room. "Ink and _tea_ , how English," he finishes, sitting up as he undoes the last button, pushing the fabric off thin shoulders.

Percy's blush is slowly spreading from his neck up to his face and down to his shoulders. "It's probably soap," he mutters, smiling a little, embarrassed. On either side of his hips, his fingers drum nervously, arrhythmically, against the bedsheets. Igor tilts his head ( _do not do not do NOT, he is TOO young, oh damn it I am in TROUBLE_ ), pauses to trace two fingertips down a meandering path on his bare chest.

"Have you done this before?" he asks, enjoying the small shudder the boy gives.

Another telltale pause. Percy raises an eyebrow, smiles a little, tilting his chin. "That depends. What are we doing?"

Again, Igor smirks. "Everything."

 

***

 

On the far side of the room, the candles have burnt out.

"...Was I - erm, was it all right?"

"Mhm. Did you enjoy yourself?"

"...Well, yes. Ah, obviously."

"Hmm." Igor lifts up onto an elbow, hovering over him and smirking faintly, proprietary. "Here, the covers are slipping again," he murmurs, reaching across the boy (Percy curls into him, a gesture that makes him wish he had the stamina for a third round) to pull the bedcovers up higher over their shoulders. "It gets cold here at night, don't let yourself catch a chill," he admonishes, arranging another fur around them.

"All right." Leaning back, Percy reaches a hand to help, tugging the blankets up. "One of the drawbacks of living in an enchanted ship, I suppose," he murmurs, smiling. "...You couldn't just use warming charms?"

"And run the risk of them malfunctioning and the ship burning?" Igor asks, raising an eyebrow at the question. He finishes arranging the covers and shrugs a shoulder, settling back down onto the mattress, nose nearly touching Percy's. "My students are used to the cold," he explains simply, sliding a hand onto the boy's hip. "Durmstrang is older than Hogwarts. Not so many windows. Is dark and winter longer," he adds, then frowns and clears his throat, embarrassed at his accent cropping up (it has a tendency to, when he speaks of home).

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," Percy says, abashed (though privately a little pleased with the accent). "It predates Hogwarts, really?"

"Mm." Sighing, Igor closes his eyes, being lulled by the close sound of Percy's steady breathing, the warmth of him and the covers. "By a few centuries. ...Though is not naturally magical, the building. We haven't been there so long, that's one reason it doesn't take to Warming Charms and Unplottables so easily."

"It predates Hogwarts, but you haven't been there long?" The disbelief in Percy's voice is obvious, and a little irritating.

Frowning, Igor opens his eyes a little, reaching his hand up to cup Percy's cheek gently, rub his thumb over the ridge of bone there. "Not very long, no. My grandfather was a professor at the original Durmstrang Institut. Outside what is today Yekaterinburg." He pauses, smiles faintly as his thumb travels down to Percy's lips. "He had photographs, it was a beautiful place. A bit like here, full of light. ...The Bolsheviks, though." The smile fades. "Grandfather and the other professors were sent to the gulags; he was already an old man. ...They didn't like magic, you see."

"Who, the - "

"Muggles, yes." Setting his jaw, eyes focused on the boy's lips, Igor scowls. "My father and his mother, they had to flee. Over the mountains. When they found others they resettled and rebuilt, and a few years later, voila. Durmstrang, son of Durmstrang." He snorts a little at the story. "The Roman church was poor there; the building was, before, a monastery."

"Ah." Surprised, mulling over the new information, Percy is silent for a moment, pensive. Igor takes advantage of the silence to pull away for a few seconds for a sip of water from the glass on beside table, and to tug off his signet ring (he's only without it when he's sleeping) and place it on the surface as well. Then he burrows back in, an arm snaking across Percy's bare waist, hitching him closer.

"Not a very good bedtime story, I suppose," he murmurs, wry.

"...I'm sorry, Igor," Percy murmurs finally, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Above him, Igor's eyes soften, a hand slides gently into his hair.

"Is fine, liubov. Stay til morning," he offers, eyes already closing as Percy nods his head.

 

When he wakes, the sun is shining, and Percy is gone.

 

***

 

>   
> _Percy -_
> 
>  _I belieeeeeeeve you may have left a necktie aboard a certain ship. Is v. top quality tie, think you should probably come and claim it before one of the students uses it as a tissue. Neanderthals._
> 
>  _I._

 

***

 

>   
> _Percy Weasley -_
> 
>  _As have not heard from you (expected less boorish behaviour from YOU of all people) have included v. top quality tie along with letter. Hope it finds you well. Tell old Crouch hello._
> 
>  _I.K._

 

***

 

 _  
_

> _P. W. -_

 _  
_

_Think I preferred it when you DIDN'T write, if that's the response I'm to expect. You little idiot, your Mr. Crouch is just as unreliable a source as you say **I** am - and how dare you, by the way. I had no ulterior motive for that night; I wasn't trying to brainwash you into a CAUSE because FRANKLY, my dear, you'd be truly shit at causes. I didn't know about your uncles and I don't appreciate the implication that I was somehow involved. My entire life does not spin around the Revelatory Experience of Meeting Percy Weasley._

 _If you really want a mind-blowing experience (I'm good at providing those, remember?), ask Crouch about his FAMILY._

 _I.K._

 

***

 

>   
> _P. Weasley -_
> 
>  _Heard about what happened with the Crouches. Liubov, I promise you (this is a real promise, trust it please) I didn't know. Inquiries are a matter of course in career in government. Do not let them see you shamed._
> 
>  _Also don't respond. Don't know where I'll be._
> 
>  _I.K._

 

***

 

>   
> _Percy -_
> 
>  _Am fine. No time._
> 
>  _I._

 

***

 

>   
> _Percy -_
> 
>  _Apologies ahead of time - bit of vodka. Stereotype of myself. Maudlin and missing you, childhood, the violin, summer, warm socks, etc. I will be ashamed of this letter in the morning which is why I send it now. Liubov._
> 
>  _He's closing in, can feel._
> 
>  _I am gladdest I met you._

 

***

 

  
_1 November, 1997  
approximately 9:30 p.m.  
the Ministry of Magic; Department for Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Division_   


"Shacklebolt."

Kingsley looks up, and is surprised to see a twitchy Percy Weasley hovering in the doorway. Eyebrows raising, he gestures the boy in, and Percy comes, clutching a thin manila folder in bloodless hands. "Weasley. Why're you slumming it down here with the mortals, won't the Minister object?" he drawls, smile tinged with suspicion as he props his elbows up on his desk.

"I daresay," Percy replies gamely, stopping in front of the desk. There's a brief, uncomfortable pause, and then he blurts out "The Death Eater attacks in Europe. They're coming out of Durmstrang, aren't they?"

Instantly, Kingsley is on his guard. Expression shuttered, he raises _both_ eyebrows. "It's as good a theory as any, I suppose. Did you really come all the way down here to discuss possibilit - "

"I _know_ they are," Percy snaps, cutting him off. The hands clutching the folder are bending it now, shaking visibly. "And I know you're in that group of Dumbledore's along with my parents and you're trying to _stop_ You-Know-Who."

Frowning, Kingsley leans away from his desk. "Don't know what you're talking about, Weasley. You've been working too much."

Percy laughs a little, nods. "Likely. ...I can tell you where Durmstrang is."

"What?" Shacklebolt can't help but laugh a little, too. "That's impossible, it's - "

"Unplottable, I know. But I can." Taking a breath, expelling it slowly, Percy flattens the folder out and sits in the chair in front of Kingsley's desk, putting the folder on the surface, opening it. "There's an abbey in Hungary that ran a school for nearly 900 years," he says, turning the folder around, shuffling through the papers and handing them to him as he talks. "Now. The school was _closed_ in 1932 because of an economic depression, but it opened seven years later with - I did some digging - entirely new staff, all brought in from Russia, even though the school was supposed to be focusing on an _Italian_ education. Which would have been a perfect cover for teaching - "

" - Spells, yes, latin to italian wouldn't've been such a jump to believe," Kingsley finishes for him, looking over the paperwork, interested despite himself. "The school's still there?"

"Yes, as far as I can tell. They even managed to keep it going during the Socialist era, I think there must've been a few rather huge _Confundus_ es to have let them get away with that."

"...Hnh." Kingsley glances over the rest of the papers, chewing on the inside of his lip as he thinks. "How many students?"

"The rolls I managed to find are probably wildly inaccurate. They claim it's a boy's school, but I know for a fact that girls attend. Possibly three hundred?"

"Hmm. How are they getting away with it?"

"We-ell. The abbey still claims the school on its tax records, and 300 well-to-do students do tend to have a positive effect on the local economy."

Pursing his lips, Kingsley skims over the last page of information and closes the folder, mind whirling. "Where did you get this information?"

"...I can't tell you." Percy trains his gaze down at his hands, folded in his lap, as Kingsley glares at him.

"You realise who I'm going to have to pitch this idea to," the Auror grumbles at him.

"Ye-es. I promise you, I have it on the very best authority."

"So why're you giving it to _me_ and not to Scrimgeour?"

Taken aback, Percy leans back in his chair. "Leverage."

"Yeah? For what?"

There's another pause. "...You were there when they found Karkaroff last summer."

Kingsley's eyes widen as he begins to put two and two together. "Oh, you've got to be fuckin' _kidding_ me - "

"I want to see his file," Percy says firmly, bringing his eyes up and locking them on the man on the opposite side of the desk. "You can get it for me."

"Why the hell would I want to do _that_?" Kingsley asks, scowling.

"Because if you don't, I'll take that information to the Minister and let _him_ handle it," Percy swiftly replies, lips thinning. "I want to see that file."

"Fine. Though you're _not_ taking it out of the room and you only get an hour," Kingsley snarls, holding tight to the folder still on his desk as he wandlessly _Accio_ s another from the vast filing system behind them. It takes a moment to reach him, but once it does, he hands it over to Weasley, who takes it and runs a hand over its front almost reverently ( _fuckin' WEIRD little kid, can't believe he's related to Fabian and Gideon_ ). "One hour."

"Thankyou," Percy murmurs primly, crossing his legs and opening the file, beginning to read.

...Twenty minutes later, eyes shining, he closes the massive file and sets it back on Shacklebolt's desk. Standing, not noticing the quizzical look Kingsley's giving him, he turns and heads out the door, managing not to break into a run til he's turned the corner.

...The list of evidence taken off what little remained of "Igor Karkaroff" failed to include a _signet ring_.

 

***

 

  
_25 July, 1998  
approximately 2:00 p.m.  
Ministry of Magic, Minister of Magic's offices_   


"Letter for you, sir," Hannah murmurs, peeking her cheerful face around the corner of the doorway. Percy glances up, over the tops of his glasses, and sighs as he sets down the report he'd been going over (the Minister requested it _by three_ \- there's no _way_ it'll ever be done). Standing, stretching, he pauses to fold another airplane and send it whizzing out the open door before he travels through it as well.

"Thanks, Hannah," he remembers to say as he walks towards the private owl window - a curious-looking bird of prey is sitting on the roost there, scaring away any pigeons that might be considering a brief stoop. Coming up to it, he regards the bird nervously for a moment before he notices a small parcel attached to its leg. "...er. I'm Percy Weasley," he tells it stupidly, but it seems to do the trick, as the bird resituates, balancing and holding out the leg with the parcel on. Working quickly, he unties the knot, and the bird lifts off from the windowledge before he can offer it water or food.

"...Odd," he murmurs, picking up the tiny box and heading back to his office. Once there, he slumps back into his seat and examines the seals around the box, picking at them with his fingernails until they come loose and the top of the box slides off.

Percy glances inside, and immediately, his breath freezes in his throat - sitting up, careful, he tips out the contents onto his desk: a folded-up piece of paper, a tiny photograph, and a vaguely familiar ring.

Picking the last up, he registers the curious weight of it in his hands, the scrolls and swoops of the "K" on its front, before he sets it down and unfolds the paper.

>   
> _Liubov moy -_
> 
>  _To think I'd put it past England to employ attractive spies (tho really given the Snape Tradition, can anyone blame me?). It was in the newspapers here, the mysterious "rebellion" at a boys' school in Pannonhalma. SUCH a shame it didn't succeed, oh yes. Truly terrible._
> 
>  _Also it was in the newspapers a month ago about the Potter brat's win - I hear that in town they celebrated for a whole half-hour before going back to work._
> 
>  _I'm not the same fool I was when I was younger. I haven't been for quite a while. The photograph is my grandfather's. Given your success in solving puzzles so far, I imagine you'd feel insulted if I gave you any other information._
> 
>  _It occurs to me that I am quite probably an idiot for sending this. However, I've never found your equal. Was hoping (wishing, thinking, praying) you'd think the same._
> 
>  _You'd be a wonderful professor. I was thinking perhaps Charms?_
> 
>  _Yours (oh, I've disgusted even MYSELF now),_
> 
>  _Igor._

Folding the paper back up, fighting to keep his breathing steady, Percy takes up the tiny photograph and squints at it for a moment, before laughing at himself and muttering an _Engorgio_ at it.

The photograph, once it's returned to its natural size, aged and slowed with years, is of a relatively small, ornate little castle nestled near the base of a mountain. Above it, the hills roll away towards the camera, almost hiding the building under the trees. There's a sparkle of a river nearby, and sunlight shifts and slides down the mountain, lighting on the roof of the building, illuminating it.

It takes Percy a moment to realise what he's seeing; he nearly drops the photo when he does. Chest hitching, he clutches the photograph more tightly, and reaches for the ring, still on his desk. Slipping it onto his last finger, he gazes down at the paperwork he'd been poring over a few minutes ago - only forty minutes til the Minister will come demanding his report - and imagines instead a dusty classroom, full of windows and books and only a few students. Mild summers (he hates London's heat), black-and-white winters, the possibility of a bed warmed by another.

Exhaling, Percy smiles faintly, and eventually nods his head - he reaches for his cloak on the back of his deskchair and, shrugging it on, gazes at the photo clutched tightly in his hand before he closes his eyes and Disapparates.


End file.
